End of the Road
by cHiMer
Summary: Even the wandering spirits like the Courier have a home to come back to. Oneshot.


Since disclaimers are pointless, I'll just use this opportunity to say that this story is best read if you have played Fallout 2 before. Or at least visited the Fallout wiki for the lore.

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><p><strong>End of the Road<strong>

The Courier paused, looking at his dust-covered boots with genuine surprise.

He wasn't really the one to pay much attention to what he looked like. Ladies like bad boys, he always told himself. Just a few years of living on the move changed the wide-eyed youth into a rugged wasteland traveler. Add a full-fledged war many, many miles – and rounds of whiskey – away, and the man who returned to his hometown looked a lot older than expected from someone his age.

His worn boots matched the rest of his look well, but they weren't what caught his attention, actually. It was the grass.

Genuine, green, vibrant grass - the likes of which he had seen only in books and two other places. One of which was a town not unlike his own, but with unbelievably arrogant and obnoxious inhabitants.

The other was a pre-War Vault filled with nightmarish botanical experiments gone out of control. The only thing that immediately came to his mind when trying to remember that hellhole was the smell of flamethrower fuel.

Quietly laughing at himself for coming up with these weird associations, the Courier crossed into the town proper. He glanced at the strip of land where the sandstone wall used to be when he left – but this deep in NCR territory the locals had no more need for such crude protection. The laser turrets were still being kept operational just in case though. A sensible precaution, he thought. Who knows what the world will throw at them next? No-one said NCR had the only fleet of Vertibirds around. Hell, if the rumors about the East Coast were true, the Enclave was still alive and kicking, and the little robot floating behind the Courier could serve as proof to that. Although even the Enclave wouldn't have the guts to attack this little town, considering who lived here.

At this point, the Courier noticed that he was drawing curious glances from the townspeople. On a hunch, he reached for his back, only to relax a moment later. No, it wasn't the gun. The carbine in question, proudly inscribed with an insignia of a long-forgotten unit of a non-existent army, still wasn't loaded. Neither was the big iron on his hip.

The Courier always kept his weapons at the ready, be it in Novac, Goodsprings, Hoover Dam or his own suite in the Lucky 38. He never felt safe, except here. The only place in the entire world where he wouldn't keep his gun loaded. The only one he could truly call home.

Home. Such a weird thing. Five years ago he ran away from it, eager to leave the safety of its confines, to explore the wild, untamed world outside and to step out from under his father's shadow. Well, his dad certainly did not get a chance to get shot in the head and survive, so the Courier got that covered. And yet, all this time he was looking forward to the day when he would return.

As he approached the very home he had not seen for so much time, he replayed every event of the last five years in his mind. He knew that whatever he felt, it definitely wasn't regret. The things he had seen and done, the dangers he braved and the challenges he overcame – this sort of experience he would not exchange for all the riches of the world. He knew that someday he would leave this place, that the adventurous spirit in his heart would send him out into the wastes again, but for now he was content to finally come back home and have some well-earned rest.

The small gate opened with a creak, and the Courier finally stopped to meet the eyes of the person sitting on the porch.

They studied each other for a few moments. The Courier was relieved to have noticed no drastic changes in the man once known as the Chosen One, aside from a few new wrinkles here and there.

From the opposite side the old man was comparing the mental image of an unruly youngster in his memory with the tired, confident-looking veteran in advanced combat armor, accompanied by a strange floating robot. A smile crept onto his face when he noticed that his wayward offspring was armed to the teeth as well.

The staring contest finally ended when the Chosen One decided to speak first.

"Meh. Not impressive enough. Could be better."

The Courier expected anything but that. "And this is the welcome I get for saving the fucking world?"

His father let out a hearty laugh in response. "Not the world. Just the country. And I came back home in Enclave power armor. So my homecoming was better than yours. Face it, kid."

The Courier simply shook his head as he came closer. "Why did I even bother coming back?"

Satisfied with his little tease, the Chosen One laughed once again as he stood up to enclose his son in a bone-crushing hug.

The son returned the gesture, albeit a bit awkwardly seeing how his father was obviously the stronger of the two. "If I came back in my own suit of Enclave power armor it would take me months to go through every military and police checkpoint, you know."

Having finally let go, the Chosen One sat back down, inviting the Courier to sit down in the chair next to him. "Oh, so you do have one? Well, in that case you can pride yourself on having spared your old man's ego. Don't think I'd survive being outdone by anyone in saving-the-world business. Or the looting, ah, I mean requisitioning everything that isn't nailed down to the floor part of it. Nice robot, by the way."

Both men laughed this time as the Courier started removing the arsenal on his back. First went the carbine, then the pistol along with its holster, then the combat knife on the belt. With all this gone, he finally slumped into the chair offered for him. After a brief struggle he removed the heavy helmet as well, squinting as his eyes weren't used to seeing the world from anywhere other than from behind a polarized visor.

He glanced at his father as the latter picked up his pistol. ".223? Well, glad I could pass my fine taste in weaponry on to you."

The Courier smiled. "That's just a small part of it. Had to take only what I could realistically carry on my back here. ED-E isn't large enough to handle that." He glanced at the other side of the yard. Sure enough, the Highwayman was still there, glinting with fresh gunmetal gray paint and being an envy of the entire NCR plus a tired man who had just finished trekking here all the way from New Vegas.

Indigenous automobile industry wasn't very high on the Congress' priority list. And what little the NCR could produce served exclusively the needs of the military.

So it was either miraculously stumbling upon the pre-War relic that could be relatively easily restored to working condition or legging it. The Courier was by all means a very lucky person, but in this regard he was stuck with Shank's pony as his primary method of transportation.

"I was afraid you'd take it with you the night you left." The Chosen One said, having noticed the direction in which his son looked.

The Courier shook his head. "No. The very reason I left was to be myself. Taking something that reminded me of home – something I did not deserve to have – would be going against that. Besides, I can't drive for shit."

The father laughed, satisfied at the answer. "That I know. Poor Vic jumped every time he heard the engine start after that one time when you tried to drive it."

"Vic… how is he?"

Suddenly, the positive demeanor was gone. "He died two years ago."

The Courier sighed. This wasn't that surprising, Vic was very old and going senile when he left, but still, the loss came unexpected.

He could only wonder what raced through the mind of his father. The Courier knew Vic only as an easy-going family friend who taught him everything about repairing stuff, but to his father he was a loyal comrade, one of the three who accompanied him to the Enclave oil rig.

After a few moments of solemn silence, the Chosen One spoke up again. "Sulik still comes to visit every now and then. And still no word of Cassidy."

Cassidy. The Courier never knew him, as he was born decades after the man in question vanished. Still, he heard a lot from his father's tales of their exploits. Four decades had passed since his disappearance, but the Chosen One still hoped to hear some news of his old friend's fate.

"I ran into his daughter in the Mojave." The Courier said in a casual manner.

He grinned as his father nearly choked on his whiskey.

"You little… did she say anything about her pa?"

The Courier shook his head. "No, apparently he went east of California and vanished back in the forties. Sorry."

His father sighed, the hope extinguished. "What is she like?"

"Drinks gallons of booze and swears like a sailor."

"Just like her father then. How was she?"

"Eh?" The Courier honestly did not understand the question.

"Don't play dumb with me. I'd bang Cassidy's daughter if I had the chance." The Chosen One said with a wicked grin.

"You sick bastard."

"Sick or not, I still get laid more than you do."

The Courier sat back and stared at the sky. "Sixty years old and you still think with your groin. Goddamit, dad. Wait till I let mom hear of this."

"If she had objections to that she wouldn't marry me, young man. So, what else did you see in the Mojave? Always wanted to go exploring there but you know, had two of your brothers and a sister to take care of."

"What else? Or who else?" The Courier asked, reaching for the whiskey bottle.

"If you ran into any familiar faces out there I'm all ears."

"I saw Marcus. And Doctor Henry." The Courier rummaged his memory for people his father could've cared about.

"Are they – are they safe?" This time his father sounded really concerned, and for a good reason. Doc Henry deserted from the Enclave decades ago, but the former Enclave personnel were routinely rounded up and imprisoned. Some clearly deserved it, but most were just victims of President Kimball's administration trying to find a scapegoat for everything, from the Legion's invasion to bad weather.

New Arroyo was one of the very few places safe from that. Being the Elder of the city, the Chosen One repeatedly refused Kimball's demands to hand over the Enclave troopers that helped him fight his way out of the oil rig.

Right now the Courier was positively sure that his father was blaming himself for letting this happen. "Don't worry, they're both safe. Marcus founded a new town for Super Mutants. Doc Henry is helping him. Hell, he even got to kick some ass at the Dam with his old Enclave squad."

The Chosen One raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

His son beamed with pride as he nodded. "Yeah. Imagine General Wait-and-see Oliver's surprise when an Enclave vertibird landed in the middle of the battle and unloaded a full squad of power armor troopers."

The father roared with laughter. "And I was wondering why he looked so annoyed on that photo where he awarded you the Golden Branch."

Proud of the mischief he caused, the Courier continued. "I made the battle one huge embarrassment for him when I convinced the Brotherhood of Steel to ally with us. The Enclave folks were just a finishing touch."

"Serves him right. Goddamn hawks, source of all our problems. But even Oliver's skull is not as thick as those of the Brotherhood, how'd you get through to them?"

"I became a Paladin." The Courier dropped the bomb, laughing at the disbelief on his father's face. "What? Great-grandpa was one too."

"Well, I guess that's one area you surpassed me in." The Chosen One laughed along carefully before adding "Just be careful about talking openly about that. I heard about the Mojave truce, but officially we're still at war with them, and there's lots of bad blood from it. I heard that the new High Elder doesn't have a stick up his ass as deep as Jeremy did though, so maybe there's some hope after all."

The Courier sighed. "Politics, petty conflicts, I am so fucking sick of it all. Sometimes I envy the Legion."

His father responded. "Who believed that violence was the only solution. Just like the Enclave. And this was their fatal mistake."

"They do not have the Enclave technology, but they make up for it with numbers. I've seen them, dad. It's not a bunch of tribals playing army. They're terrifying."

The father laid his hand on the Courier's shoulder. "Yet you defeated them. You killed their leader, slaughtered his elite guard, and then proceeded to win the battle for the NCR by killing that Caesar's second-in-command. I'd say you are hell of a lot more terrifying than them."

"How did you know all that?" The Courier stared back in disbelief.

"I'm a government official, sonny. I know a lot of things before you do." The Chosen One poured some whiskey into the other glass on the small table. "Don't worry about the Legion. They were held together only by their leader, and they'll fall apart just as quickly as he united them."

The Courier took a careful sip. The warming sensation of the alcohol inside calmed him down somewhat. "Funny. Marcus said the same thing."

"He was always a smart fellow. Broken Hills was a nice town under him… until the uranium mine ran out, that is."

A few minutes passed as the men stared into the distance. "What else happened here while I was gone?"

The Chosen One blinked as if surprised by the question. "Here? Nothing much. It's all the same. We get on with our lives, nice and quiet, just the way I like it."

"No effects of the war here?"

"Nope. One condition on which we joined the NCR was that they don't poke their nose into our business. Kimball doesn't seem to get the message though, I had to tell him to go fuck himself no less than five times this month alone. I had enough of the war, son. It's over. It's behind me. I don't want anything to ever change my world. Ever again. All these years I was just content to sit on the porch and wait for you to come back."

"I'll have to go back there one more time." The Courier spoke up quietly.

"Okay, fuck what I just said. I'm coming with you. I was worried sick about you all these years and I'm not losing you now."

The Courier shook his head. "No, dad. This lonesome road is meant for me and only for me."

"You'll be back though." The father wasn't asking a question. That was a statement.

"Yeah, I'll be back." The Courier smiled at his dad's newfound faith in him. "I'll be back, and I'll stay home for good this time."

"That's my boy." The Chosen One laughed as he pulled another bottle of whiskey from under his chair. "Let's have another while we wait for your mother and others. Then we can celebrate properly."

The two men sat there until dusk, basking in the setting sun, drinking, laughing and sharing stories.

Maybe war never changes.

But these two did not care. Their war was over.


End file.
